Investigation Finds 'Little Oversight' Over Crucial Supply Chain for US Election Software (politico.com) 94
Politico reports U.S. states have no uniform way of policing the use of overseas subcontractors in election technology, "let alone to understand which individual software components make up a piece of code."
For example, to replace New Hampshire's old voter registration database, state election officials "turned to one of the best — and only — choices on the market," Politico: "a small, Connecticut-based IT firm that was just getting into election software." But last fall, as the new company, WSD Digital, raced to complete the project, New Hampshire officials made an unsettling discovery: The firm had offshored part of the work. That meant unknown coders outside the U.S. had access to the software that would determine which New Hampshirites would be welcome at the polls this November.
The revelation prompted the state to take a precaution that is rare among election officials: It hired a forensic firm to scour the technology for signs that hackers had hidden malware deep inside the coding supply chain. The probe unearthed some unwelcome surprises: software misconfigured to connect to servers in Russia ["probably by accident," they write later] and the use of open-source code — which is freely available online — overseen by a Russian computer engineer convicted of manslaughter, according to a person familiar with the examination and granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it... New Hampshire officials say the scan revealed another issue: A programmer had hard-coded the Ukrainian national anthem into the database, in an apparent gesture of solidarity with Kyiv.
None of the findings amounted to evidence of wrongdoing, the officials said, and the company resolved the issues before the new database came into use ahead of the presidential vote this spring. This was "a disaster averted," said the person familiar with the probe, citing the risk that hackers could have exploited the first two issues to surreptitiously edit the state's voter rolls, or use them and the presence of the Ukrainian national anthem to stoke election conspiracies. [Though WSD only maintains one other state's voter registration database — Vermont] the supply-chain scare in New Hampshire — which has not been reported before — underscores a broader vulnerability in the U.S. election system, POLITICO found during a six-month-long investigation: There is little oversight of the supply chain that produces crucial election software, leaving financially strapped state and county offices to do the best they can with scant resources and expertise.
The technology vendors who build software used on Election Day face razor-thin profit margins in a market that is unforgiving commercially and toxic politically. That provides little room for needed investments in security, POLITICO found. It also leaves states with minimal leverage over underperforming vendors, who provide them with everything from software to check in Americans at their polling stations to voting machines and election night reporting systems. Many states lack a uniform or rigorous system to verify what goes into software used on Election Day and whether it is secure.
The article also points out that many state and federal election officials "insist there has been significant progress" since 2016, with more regular state-federal communication. "The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, now the lead federal agency on election security, didn't even exist back then.
"Perhaps most importantly, more than 95% of U.S. voters now vote by hand or on machines that leave some type of paper trail, which officials can audit after Election Day."
For example, to replace New Hampshire's old voter registration database, state election officials "turned to one of the best — and only — choices on the market," Politico: "a small, Connecticut-based IT firm that was just getting into election software." But last fall, as the new company, WSD Digital, raced to complete the project, New Hampshire officials made an unsettling discovery: The firm had offshored part of the work. That meant unknown coders outside the U.S. had access to the software that would determine which New Hampshirites would be welcome at the polls this November.
The revelation prompted the state to take a precaution that is rare among election officials: It hired a forensic firm to scour the technology for signs that hackers had hidden malware deep inside the coding supply chain. The probe unearthed some unwelcome surprises: software misconfigured to connect to servers in Russia ["probably by accident," they write later] and the use of open-source code — which is freely available online — overseen by a Russian computer engineer convicted of manslaughter, according to a person familiar with the examination and granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it... New Hampshire officials say the scan revealed another issue: A programmer had hard-coded the Ukrainian national anthem into the database, in an apparent gesture of solidarity with Kyiv.
None of the findings amounted to evidence of wrongdoing, the officials said, and the company resolved the issues before the new database came into use ahead of the presidential vote this spring. This was "a disaster averted," said the person familiar with the probe, citing the risk that hackers could have exploited the first two issues to surreptitiously edit the state's voter rolls, or use them and the presence of the Ukrainian national anthem to stoke election conspiracies. [Though WSD only maintains one other state's voter registration database — Vermont] the supply-chain scare in New Hampshire — which has not been reported before — underscores a broader vulnerability in the U.S. election system, POLITICO found during a six-month-long investigation: There is little oversight of the supply chain that produces crucial election software, leaving financially strapped state and county offices to do the best they can with scant resources and expertise.
The technology vendors who build software used on Election Day face razor-thin profit margins in a market that is unforgiving commercially and toxic politically. That provides little room for needed investments in security, POLITICO found. It also leaves states with minimal leverage over underperforming vendors, who provide them with everything from software to check in Americans at their polling stations to voting machines and election night reporting systems. Many states lack a uniform or rigorous system to verify what goes into software used on Election Day and whether it is secure.
The article also points out that many state and federal election officials "insist there has been significant progress" since 2016, with more regular state-federal communication. "The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, now the lead federal agency on election security, didn't even exist back then.
"Perhaps most importantly, more than 95% of U.S. voters now vote by hand or on machines that leave some type of paper trail, which officials can audit after Election Day."
Laugh or cry? (Score:2)
Do neither or both, as you see fit. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I keep tellin' ya, the pilot was the last episode. (Score:2)
Re:It's a conspiracy theory! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Gore accepted the court's results in 2000 and I'm failing to recall the scores of lawsuits that Hillary filed in 2016. Oh my mistake, that was Trump in 2020 and every single lawsuit was tossed out.
Re:It's a conspiracy theory! (Score:5, Informative)
Do it like Canada (Score:5, Insightful)
We vote with pencil and paper, takes a total of about 30 seconds to mark your ballot.
Said ballots, in turn, are counted by hand, in triplicate, and final election results are available by about 9pm pacific time on election day.
In the rare case of a recount being ordered for a given district (typically only when results are within 1% or so) it's rare that the results vary by more than 1 or 2 ballots.
Elections should be simple and efficient.
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
The usual complaint down here in Canadacs underpants is that such a mechanism is not accessible for blind people. I can sympathize with that, but I'd rather have the solution be a computer system that gives them a printed paper ballot that can go into the kind of manually checkable system that you describe. For some reason, though, the people pushing computerized systems want paper-free solutions, which some people interpret as "evidence-free".
Re:Do it like Canada (Score:5, Insightful)
The usual complaint down here in Canadacs underpants is that such a mechanism is not accessible for blind people. I can sympathize with that, but I'd rather have the solution be a computer system that gives them a printed paper ballot that can go into the kind of manually checkable system that you describe. For some reason, though, the people pushing computerized systems want paper-free solutions, which some people interpret as "evidence-free".
While we have basically 10% the population of the US, it turns out we have just enough smart people in Canada to come up with a solution. Or seven, depending on your particular need. There's also some stuff in here about not having voting places deliberately far away from underprivileged citizens that some democracies working on making themselves great again might find inspiring.
Elections Canada [elections.ca]
Voter information in accessible formats
Key information about registering and voting is available online, in print and in the following alternative formats upon request:
Large print
Braille
Audio CD and files (i.e. DAISY)
Full transcription
Captioning
ASL and LSQ videos
Multiple Indigenous and ethnocultural languages
Accessibility tools and services at the polls
There are many services and tools available at polling places to help electors with disabilities vote, and election officers are trained to help.
The services offered include:
Assistance marking a ballot
Sign language interpretation (must be requested in advance)
Vouching
Signature guides (if someone needs assistance signing their name)
The tools to help electors vote include:
Large-print and braille lists of candidates (braille only available on election day)
Tactile and braille voting templates
Magnifiers
Large-grip pencils
Voting screens that let in more light
A guy in Nebraska has it covered (Score:2)
Dependency - https://xkcd.com/2347/ [xkcd.com]
I'm amazed at how a development team can get so many NuGet packages int a 5,000 line application. The lines of package code / application lines of code ratio must be 10 to 1.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, but for some reason people here like to have really complex, fragile and opaque computerized solutions instead of those simple approaches. I don't really understand the US preference, except that in theory a malicious or corrupt worker could subvert many accessibility services to try to change the voter's ballot and many of them compromise ballot secrecy. I think we used to allow family members to assist disabled voters, but that has similar ballot secrecy problems.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Do it like Canada (Score:4, Insightful)
We do here in the U.S. as well. The machines just count the ballots. Much ado about nothing.
Well... I mean... they count something. What that something is turns out to be up to the people programming them.
Also Canada has the population of California.
Guess what? Doesn't matter. We have just a wee bit more land to spread that population out over and yet... we still manage to break down the vote-counting problem into zones that report upwards. We don't count the votes faster because there are fewer votes. We do it because we have enough voting stations so each one can get their counting done within a couple hours.
Re: (Score:1)
I don't know where you are, but as far back as I can remember the GTA region has done paper ballot, hard pencil, computer scan for rapid tally, human recount if something seems off.
You get results to the news as soon as a polling station closes, no hours of delay for the first counts.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Do it like Canada (Score:5, Insightful)
That all sounds good, but Democrat-run cities keep their polling stations longer, and wait until the other precincts deliver their vote counts. They then know how many fraudulent ballots they need to add to their tally, in order to swing the State's electoral votes in their favor.
You do remember that in the last US federal election, the only party complaining about - and committing - anything like voter fraud was the one starting with an "R", right?
Just because the "you'll never have to vote again", "can you find some votes" guy says the other guys are committing fraud doesn't mean they are, and it doesn't mean his allies aren't. I get it that guy has taught you that if you repeat a lie often enough, unashamedly, some people believe it's true. But... that won't work here.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Do it like Canada (Score:4, Insightful)
Given that mail-in ballots are typically accepted for several days (in my area I believe it's five days) past election day as long as they are postmarked on or before election day, final results could not be available in most jurisdictions in the US for at least five days.
As well, in my jurisdiction if someone fails to sign the outer envelope on a mail in ballot, there's a "cure" process that results in the voter being notified and given some time to provide a signature so the ballot can be counted.
As well, results are typically subject to some type of audit process and that takes time after the "count" is complete before the results are "final".
So no matter how we voted in the US (assuming we didn't eliminate mail in voting in all forms - something which simply is not going to happen) we couldn't have "final" election results available the same day as the election.
Re: (Score:2)
The USA leaves plenty of space for FUD & controversy to spring from whichever conspiracy theorists have a loud enough voice, then amplified by anti-social media. It makes elections a non-stop comedy of errors.
Then they have the gall to criticise Venezuela's electoral system. Perhaps they should try using Venezuela's electronic voting technology. Oh wait, some states & Canada
Re: (Score:1)
Yes, in America we do recounts and focus on following the law and insuring that each vote is counted and that each candidate can contest, in the courts, the process if necessary.
The vote and its accuracy is sacrosanct to Americans. This is far, far more important than "getting some sort of count done but quickly". Our system is very decentralized which does help instill confidence in the system but also does delay the vote count somewhat.
Perhaps this seems quirky to some from other countries -- just like vi
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I do take his point that in the US we invest a substantial effort to auditing and verifying elections, whereas in other countries, that seems to be just a pro forma level of effort.
Re: (Score:2)
Here's a report that outlines how many countries around the world ensure free, open, & fair elections,
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know how other countries handle elections, but I rather imagine they use just as much automation as anyone. I especially deeply doubt anyone uses literal hand counting of ballots. The error rate for hand-counted ballots is in the single digits. The error rate for scanned ballots is a full 1,000 times less. You'd be crazy not to use a machine for this repetitive, high-accuracy task.
Similarly, I very much doubt that voter registration is done by hand in Canada or anywhere else. Of course people use da
Re: (Score:2)
Typical error rate in Canada, where ballots are hand counted, is 3 or 4 ballots out of about 80,000 cast in a given electoral district. It's extremely reliable.
Each ballot box is independently counted by 3 different people, those numbers are checked against each other. If there is a mismatch, the count is done again. Those numbers are then tabulated at the poling station, and in turn those totals are delivered to the district, who in turn releases the results in real time.
Re: (Score:2)
Citation needed on that error rate, I think. Are you saying that three different people count 80,000 ballots (!) on election night and come up with the same answer? I must be not understanding you, that seems highly doubtful. Canada doesn't have a two-party system as the US does, so I presume its ballots are even longer and more complicated.
Re: (Score:2)
At least in many states "Voter Intent" is what counts.
One thing that comes up with "hand marked" ballots that are then counted by "machines" is that a hand recount can identify cases where "voter intent" is determined to be different than what the machine counted. One case is an "undervote" but there is actually a faint mark that then the hand recount auditors argue over. Similarly is "overvotes" where two options are picked when only one is allowed but upon hand count it's determined that one of the option
Re: (Score:2)
So, here in Canada, every ballot in a given ballot box (total of up to about 500 ballots per box) is counted, by hand, by three different people. Those numbers are then checked against each other. The whole process is in turn overseen by representatives from all of the candidates involved (or can be, depends on how many volunteers they have). Those numbers are in turn reported to the authorities and tabulated. The results of each poling station are published, and can be checked against the local tallies.
It'
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks. Can you provide more details? How are the results tabulated? How many choices are there per ballot? How many tranches of 500 does each counter count? If one counter's total disagrees, does everyone recount?
Re:Do it like Canada (Score:4, Interesting)
We vote with pencil and paper, takes a total of about 30 seconds to mark your ballot. Said ballots, in turn, are counted by hand ...
Here in Florida, we do the paper and pencil ballot thing, but then it goes into a scanner. There's a paper trail if anyone really wanted to verify whether what's going on inside the black box matched reality, but it seems like for the most part we're just stuck blindly trusting that there's no shenanigans taking place on the electronic side of the process.
Of course, the state has been solidly red lately, and empirically speaking that seems to track. There are a lot of Republicans here [fl.gov], so it's really hard to be suspicious that anything is amiss with the voting machines.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Security is a system , it is not a thing; and, that system's largest component (and most subject to attack) is human.
Re: (Score:2)
No, there's no need for "blind" trust. In my state of Virginia, we certify each and every scanner before it is used in each and every election via black-box testing. And, after each and every election, we perform audits on a rotating basis that prove the ballots were counted accurately.
Re:Do it like Canada (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, France does it all on paper too and no State has more voters than France.
Nobody can say why we have voting software and everybody knows they increase the opportunity for cheating.
Then you have corporate execs for some of these software companies testifying that they never add modems to the machines and then you find out that the counties procure the software and hardware separately and the most common Dell standard build approved for elections has a board with integrated wifi, bluetooth, and 4G.
So clearly deception is happening to at least some degree.
Only 20% of the public trusts voting software and it provides the means and opportunity for rigging if the motive exists.
Which could be trillions of dollars and extreme amounts of power.
The question everyone should be asking is why spend more on a more expensive system that most people don't trust?
Re: (Score:3)
Only 20% of the public trusts voting software and it provides the means and opportunity for rigging if the motive exists.
That's probably confirmation bias. Most people tend to associate with folks who have similar political leanings and assume something screwy must be going on when the winning candidate candidate turns out to be the one that nobody they knew voted for. This trope even made it into an episode of Stargate SG1. [imdb.com]
Colonel Jack O'Neill: [about the president and vice-president] Does anyone know anyone who voted for those two shrubs?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Do it like Canada (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Pencil?
What's to stop someone with an eraser coming along and changing your vote?
Re: (Score:2)
Serious answer: the paper is actually explicitly designed to resist erasing of a mark.
Other serious answer: The whole process is overseen by representatives from the various political parties involved. Yeah, the Marxist-Lenninists, Communist Party, Natural Law Party, or Rhino party might not have a representative at every polling station to supervise the operations, but you can bet that the Liberals, NDP, Conservatives and probably the Greens have a volunteer who's job it is to ensure there are no shenaniga
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We vote with pencil and paper, takes a total of about 30 seconds to mark your ballot.
Said ballots, in turn, are counted by hand, in triplicate, and final election results are available by about 9pm pacific time on election day.
But what if people don't vote for the right candidate? How do you fix that?
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly.
If countries like India (large population, low average technological base generally) can tally generally-recognized-fair elections in three days, it should be nationally humiliating that the US can't sort its shit out in weeks or months.
Re: (Score:2)
That only works because in Canada we only vote on one thing at a time
Re: (Score:1)
if there's no money in it, it ain't getting money
Capitalism doesn't even always put money into things when they seriously need them to be correct.
Not Federal (Score:5, Informative)
It may be confusing to people from other countries, but in the USA, the federal elections are done entirely by each individual state. The federal government is really not involved at all. Each state makes up its own rules, methods, standards, procedures, and implementations for the voting, and they execute it all by themselves.
The federal government does not have the power to specify or control any of it. That's why there is no standard uniform way of running the election across all of the country. For example, the feds can't dictate the methods or equipment used for voting. Each state does its own thing, however it wants. There is technically no such thing as a "federal election". It is 50 individual sovereign states, each running their own election however they see fit.
Re: (Score:2)
You left out the part where what amount to two private corporations pretty much have a stranglehold on the process as well...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There are some federally certified systems but use and compliance is optional.
Re:Not Federal (Score:5, Informative)
It is 50 individual sovereign states, each running their own election however they see fit.
This is also, procedural speaking, citizens do not vote the President. It is the states that vote for President, by dispatching "electors" from the state to a conference in Washington D.C. to count up the states' votes.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no Constitutional right to vote for President. The whole "one man, one vote" thing is entirely untrue. The state appoints a few individual agents called "electors", who are pledged to vote for a specific candidate, and sends them to Washington. The US Constitution determines how many electors each state gets (it''s the number of representatives in Congress). But it is entirely up to state law (including the state's Constitution) how those electors are chosen. The electors usually vote for the candidate the state pledged them to, but sometimes they go rogue. It turns out that it's only a trivial state misdemeanor (at worst) for an elector to vote for the "wrong" candidate.
Anyway, point being: There is no Constitutional right or anything that says there even has to be an election, and there is definitely no right for a person to vote for President. A state could just have the Governor decide what electors will go. Or it could have the electors chosen by the legislature. Or by which day of the week a groundhog appeared on the grounds of the state capitol in the second week of September.
As it happens, in modern times, the states have decided to hold elections in which citizens will vote for the electors, and it will be done in secret. None of that is mandated by the US Constitution, and a state could change its mind and do it differently if it wanted. But if you look at your ballot, you will see that it does not say you are voting for Trump or Harris. It says you are voting for the electors representing Trump or Harris. And then the elector when they get to D.C. can actually just vote any way they personally feel like. And the state can't do anything about it -- it's binding. If they didn't trust that elector, who is the only actual person who gets a vote, they should not have sent them.
The US Constitution has different rules for the election of Congress (House and Senate), and Congress can pass laws that superseded most of whatever laws and procedure the state comes up with. The House of Representatives is elected by popular vote. Until the Constitution was amended in 1913, the Senate, by contrast, was explicitly appointed by the state legislature. (The Founders felt that letting citizens have a direct vote on Senators was a bad idea.)
I suspect the US citizenry is the most ignorant, misinformed, and confused about the structure of the government and how it works. There is no compulsory education about it in the schools. These days some public high schools have elective "Civics" classes, but there was nothing like that when I went to school. The closest we came was "US History", but it was not from a perspective of how anything works today.
I've probably opened the Electoral College can of worms with this post, but I thought it might be informative, and Oh Well...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
+1 Interesting...if I had Mod Points
Thanks. Now I know what I slept through in my senior year of high school.
Re: Not Federal (Score:2)
Buddy, did you miss the part where you were agreeing that each state has its own setup? Sure, I've only voted in Presidential elections in 4 of the 50 states, but not one of those ballots referenced Electors. At all.
Re: (Score:2)
if you look at your ballot, you will see that it does not say you are voting for Trump or Harris. It says you are voting for the electors representing Trump or Harris
Buddy, did you miss the part where you were agreeing that each state has its own setup? Sure, I've only voted in Presidential elections in 4 of the 50 states, but not one of those ballots referenced Electors. At all.
I think you may have a reading impairment because: ..." on it. Or maybe you need glasses -- the part with the candidate name is in big print, and the "elector" part is smaller print.
(a) I was replying to myself and am the OP who was making that point (b) both in the original post, and amplifying it my reply post that you are misunderstanding (c) Your ballot definitely says "The electors for
I suppose they do it that way on the assumption that you don't like to read details, and mention of "electors" might c
Re: Not Federal (Score:3)
State 1 [ballotpedia.org]
State 2 [ballotpedia.org]
State 3 [ballotpedia.org]
State 4 [ballotpedia.org]
No mention of electors. Are there states where they do? Undoubtedly. But if "you" look at your ballot, and "you" are from any of those states, plus Alabama or who knows how many others, "you" will find no indication you're voting for electors.
Not to mention, you have no fucking idea if state law says "we tally votes for President and then send some electors accordingly" or "we tally votes for pseudonymous electors."
Re: (Score:2)
Problem is that the Electoral College idea was dreamed up because the founders felt that the great unwashed were too ignorant to contribute meaningfully to choosing the next leaders. This has been cut back over the years so now only the president is chosen this way. Sad part is that, as alluded by others, the level of public ignorance as to the issues and choices is still pretty bad. Whether we are heading towards 'Idiocracy' or already there is just an opinion. But the concerns of the founders were well ju
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think this is as complete as it could be. The Founder's distrust of pure democracy was rooted in the very real fear of mob violence, as just evidenced by the French Revolution. And in any event, I believe the Electoral College was more a compromise to make federalism possible, it wasn't aimed at preventing the evil of pure democracy. The system of representative government in the House was the solution to that issue.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think this is as complete as it could be. The Founder's distrust of pure democracy was rooted in the very real fear of mob violence, as just evidenced by the French Revolution. And in any event, I believe the Electoral College was more a compromise to make federalism possible, it wasn't aimed at preventing the evil of pure democracy. The system of representative government in the House was the solution to that issue.
Quite correct. And for those not clear on his last sentence: the more powerful part of Congress, the Senate, was not elected by citizens voting: Senators were appointed by the state legislature. The House represents the passions of the unwashed masses, while the Senate are the longer-serving wise men who give stability to the country.
Re: (Score:2)
Problem is that the Electoral College idea was dreamed up because the founders felt that the great unwashed were too ignorant .
This is partly true, but there is a much more significant factor. If it were done by direct popular vote, the election would be decided entirely by the population of a tiny handful of cities. And in opposition to that, we think the rest of the people should have the same impact to make it fair.
(The true part of not trusting the citizens was a reflection of the times. Most of the population was not educated, and more importantly there was no communication (e.g. news) that could timely reach the people; no wa
Re: Not Federal (Score:2)
Not really accurate. See Art I Section 4:
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
That federal authority has been exercised, for instance, in the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and is the subject of litigation in Republican
Re: (Score:2)
The federal government is really not involved at all.
Not really accurate. See Art I Section 4
Actually, entirely accurate.
The part you are referring to is only about electing the Congress, and has nothing to do with electing the President. I explained this exact thing in my post (although I didn't make the citation).
Re: Not Federal (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not quite as cut and dried as that. You are correct that the states have ultimate authority over their own elections, but the federal government has a great deal of control over the administration of federal-only elections via the Help America Vote Act [wikipedia.org]. For example, many states require proof of citizenship in order to register to vote, but those rules do not apply to people registering to vote for federal candidates. Ther
Re: (Score:2)
They have some control in the form of the law that you cite, but it's not part of the Constitution. What that law actually (only) does is authorize certain federal agencies to provide money to the states to help run their election of federal offices. You want the money? Here are the rules.
Of course, every state wants the money.
The part about "federal-only elections" is an odd thing, as there is no such thing in the USA. On every ballot there will be candidates for state legislative and executive positions,
Use of electronic voting has been decreasing (Score:5, Interesting)
In 2020 fewer than 9% of registered voters nationwide were living in jurisdictions that used electronic voting machines without paper trails for all voters.
Thats expected to drop to 5%.
Counties in six states still use paperless voting machines. Most lie in solidly Republican or Democratic congressional districts, which decreases the likelihood of a contested election.
but...An ABC/Ipsos poll in January finding only about 20% of the American public is very confident in the election system.
source: https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com]
Re: (Score:1)
An ABC/Ipsos poll in January finding only about 20% of the American public is very confident in the election system.
Small wonder... nearly half the public thinks it got cheated in 2020, and most of the rest expect that first half to cheat them in 2024 if they can figure out how to do it.
Re: (Score:3)
In Florida an ID card costs $25 plus a $6.25 processing fee. That's also not including any costs involved in obtaining the necessary documentation. Some municipalities will waive the fee if you can jump through some hoops to prove you really are low income (again, as I'd previously mentioned, if you won't be driving that's all the means testing really necessary), but you're still on the hook for the cost of obtaining a duplicate birth certificate.
I'm totally fine with my tax dollars going towards letting
Re: (Score:2)
In Florida an ID card costs $25 plus a $6.25 processing fee.
As you note in your post, if you can show that you are poor, it doesn't cost anything to get that ID card. But that is not a "voter ID card", that's a general ID card (for buying liquor, cigarettes, cashing checks, etc.) That's the ID card you can get when you are unable to drive a car - it's exactly a Driver's License. Only no driving.
But that's not what you need to vote.
Here is a list of IDs you can use to vote in Florida,
starting with the above ($35 or free) card:
* Florida identification card issued by t
Re: (Score:2)
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/... [x.com]
Gee, what a shock, the richest man in the world fails to grasp that some people are actually so limited in their means that obtaining an ID card is actually a burden.
Getting a voter ID card is free.
Re: (Score:2)
The dirty secret is that everything is contracted out several levels deep.
A Korean car company contracted out the self driving HPC system to a global engineering firm. The software was contracted out to a software startup. The engineering firm hired me for on site support at the software company. I wasn't even paid directly but through an engineering placement agency.
You were expecting rigor and impartiality? (Score:2)
Am I the only oldtimer here? Plus ça change . (Score:2)
The Diebold Voting-Machine Hack
https://slashdot.org/story/06/... [slashdot.org]
Worst Ever Security Flaw in Diebold Voting Machine
https://slashdot.org/story/06/... [slashdot.org]
An Open Letter To Diebold
https://slashdot.org/story/06/... [slashdot.org]
Diebold Security Foiled Again
https://it.slashdot.org/story/... [slashdot.org]
Hans Reiser ? (Score:1)
Hans Reiser ?
But ... but ... (Score:2)
Election security threat model (Score:2)
Having some interest and experience in modeling software threats, I've often thought about trying to model the security threats of our various state election regulations and procedures. In particular, what I'd like to know is how hard will it be to mitigate the various threat vectors each state's rules and processes expose. I have zero interest in making a value judgment about whether those rules ought to exist or not, I just want to know what it takes to defend them from attack.
My hypothesis is that attack
nothing new (Score:2)
Election software has been a problem ever since there was... election software; in other words this has been a problem for decades. No one will do anything about it because "there has never been any proven instance of any widespread election fraud."